The year is 2014 and The CW are gearing up for the third series of their first hit TV show Arrow. But, at the same time, they are preparing to air the first episode of The Flash. Being a massive comic book fan and loving the titular character, the show was one that I was very much anticipating. Since then, we have had six series’ with these characters and a seventh season coming now underway. But, due to having an excessive number of episodes to watch in preparation, here is a recap of the story so far of The Flash.
The first episode of The Flash (known as the ‘pilot’) debuted on the 7th October 2014 and first introduced us to forensic scientist, Barry Allen (played by Grant Gustin). After the particle accelerator explosion that took place at Star Labs, Barry was struck by a lightning bolt which put him in a coma for nine months. After awakening, he suddenly realised that everything around him was different especially that Iris West was now dating someone, Eddie, and had moved on from Barry’s accident. While trying to recover, he starts to notice that he now has super speed and is now the fastest man alive. But, Barry wasn’t the only person granted powers on the night of the explosion because an entire gallery of rogues were given powers and are using them to commit felonies.
To try and figure out why Barry now has super speed, he calls upon Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes) and they take Barry under their wing and build a team to fight crime as Central City’s brand new hero, The Flash. But, a new speedster that is much faster than Barry has made his way to Central City and is threatening everyone Barry loves and calls himself Reverse Flash. It turns out that it is Eobard Thawne who murdered Barry’s mother in front of him as a child, framing his dad for the crime and sentencing him to prison, and is the great-great grandson of Iris’ boyfriend, Eddie. But, Eobard has disguised himself as Harrison Wells in the present day and has been secretly luring Barry and his team into a trap the entire time! Whilst Thawne’s master plan is starting to come into full-effect, Barry learns that if he runs fast enough he can travel through time which plays heavily into the show later down the line. However, while the tension is high, Eddie shoots himself making the ultimate sacrifice that saves Central City making Eobard fade out of existence.
Moving onto Season 2 and the stakes are even higher! Tensions are arising, the scope is bigger and as a series, it’s even bolder than season one. The next chapter in “The Flash” continues on from the last series but is a lot more emotional and gut-wrenching. The series starts off by Eobard Thawne (disguised as Harrison Wells) confessing to the murder of Barry’s mother meaning that Barry is reunited with his father outside of Iron Heights penitentiary. But, new Metahumans across the city start attacking the civilians of Central City once again spontaneously, which turns out to be the criminals from parallel universes that have somehow made their way to the Earth that our heroes live on, known as Earth-1.
After a mysterious man shows up at the doorstep of Star Labs, named Jay Garrick, stating that he is the Flash from Earth-2, he brings information about these new criminals and states that they are doppelgangers of humans of this Earth; basically meaning that they are the same person but with different personalities from a different universe. He says that his arch-nemesis, Zoom (portrayed by Tony Todd), is allowing Metahumans from his Earth to come from Earth-2 to Earth-1 to cause chaos within Central City. After finally taking down all of the super-powered criminals, Barry finally confronts Zoom which leads to The Flash brutally losing in a high-octane fight due to being too slow.
This leads Barry and the team to try and make The Flash faster by using any resource available at their fingertips. Meanwhile, Cisco is starting to have visions whenever he touches an object or a human being meaning that he is now a Metahuman too! So, after trying to make Barry be the fastest that he can possibly be, he finally defeats Zoom by splitting himself into two and overpowering him.
Whilst celebrating the defeat of Zoom, Barry decides to travel back in time to the night of his mother’s death and saves her from the evil clutches of Reverse Flash creating a new reality called Flashpoint; which leads into Season 3.
The third series carries on from the end of series two with the events of Flashpoint and begins with Barry living the ideal life. His mother is still alive and his father hasn’t been arrested whilst the fan-favourite superhero is having family time and has given up the previous crime-fighting style. However, when he starts to notice that his friends and lifestyle prior to Flashpoint are changing for the worst, he must seek out Eobard Thawne (aka Reverse Flash) to murder Barry’s mother and restore the timeline. The rest of the series follows Team Flash as they try to fix the mistakes caused by The Flash himself whilst facing off a new threat called Savitar; who is revealed to be The Flash’ second half after splitting in order to kill Zoom.
Season four takes place shortly after the end of the last series and after Barry is sent into the speed force at the end of Series three, he is brought back but upon his arrival, dark matter is spout across the city giving many individuals powers who are trying to kill The Flash. However, it turns out that the main antagonist of this series Clifford DeVoe has been setting up his master plan. His plan is to take powers from Metahumans and switch bodies with them; making him want to take Barry’s speed.
The first step in his plan involves switching bodies and planting the dead body in Barry’s apartment meaning that Barry must go to prison for murder. Barry does break out of Iron Heights but is greeted by DeVoe and is shown has powerful this series’ villain truly is. When Barry returns to Star Labs, one of Mr Allen’s old co-workers, Ralph Dibny, was given the power to stretch his body to unbelievable lengths and shape shift in the process. He joins Team Flash and goes by his alter-ego name, The Elongated Man.
DeVoe goes hunting all the new Metahumans and takes their powers one by one but after succeeding in the first step in his master plan, he sends satellites into space and will use them to wipe everybody’s mind. Once again, Barry saves the day and the series comes to a close.
Next season starts with the arrival of Nora West Allen. After a shocking turn of events, Nora is plummeted into the past where she meets her parents, Iris and Barry, which may cause big problems for the future. Nora says she is stuck in the present so the team try to figure out a way to send her back home in the future. She warns them that Barry goes missing and never returns and that a man hunting Metahumans is murdering them one by one. This man is called Cicada and carries around a dagger that dampens powers when they are nearby. He is known as one of the most infamous killers because in the future, he still has never been caught. The team try to hunt down this meta-serial killer but if they catch him in the present this could have dire consequences for Nora and the future.
It turns out that after a catastrophic event, Cicada was hit with a dagger infused with power whilst his daughter, Grace, was put into a coma. He builds up anger and that is why he starts hunting down Metas. After convincing Cicada to take a newly made cure for Metahumans, he is murdered by another Cicada in the biggest shock of the season. It turns out that this Cicada is Grace from the future and she is out for blood. The team eventually reach Grace and defeat her, which brings another series of “The Flash” to a close.
Series six is my personal weakest series of the show but it starts with a mysterious visitor from another planet saying that Barry must sacrifice himself in order for the world to live. So, for the first half of this show, he is preparing his friends and family for his eventual death. This makes the first half of this season more of a drama than a superhero show but when Barry doesn’t die in the Crisis where he was told he was going to perish, the series picks back up and has the team face off against Eva McCulloch (aka Mirror Master), a Metahuman with the power to control mirrors. After holding Iris and Cisco’s new girlfriend, Kamilla, inside a mirror with no way to escape, the team must find a way to defeat Eva and bring their team members back home. In the final few moments of the season, Iris suddenly disappears and we are left not knowing where she has gone! Sadly, due to the pandemic, you will just have to wait a little bit longer to see how this plotline will be resolved.You are now all caught up on one of my favourite Comic-Book Television shows, “The Flash”. Will you be tuning in to watch the seventh series? I surely cannot wait to see how everything converges! I have many questions that I want to see resolved and I am very intrigued to see what happens next.
Coming up next on The Flash:
The Flash stars Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/The Flash, Candice Patton as Iris West-Allen, Danielle Panabaker as Caitlin Snow, Carlos Valdes as Cicso Ramon, Tom Cavanagh Harrison Wells, and Jesse L. Martin as Joe West. The series airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.
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